Book Reviews From The Bookbag
The Bookbag
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.
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The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett: An Origami Yoda Book by Tom Angleberger
What is out there that can make a wimpy kid less, er, wimpy? Why, a paper finger puppet of the Star Wars universe's Yoda character, that's what. One kid in school has taken the Origami Yoda persona on through several other books and adventures, and he's going to be useful here, as he, our chief narrator Tommy and all their friends despair at changes in the school. In a rash move, the principal has banned all the semi-educational but fun classes, like music, drama and, er, Lego Robot Club, and replaced them with horrendously boring and patronising, shrill TV programmes and rote filling-in of worksheets, just so collectively the school's exam marks bounce back from a one-year dip. But how can one little paper Yoda inspire such a large scale retraction, and get the changes reversed? Full review...
Star Wars Jedi Academy by Jeffrey Brown
Roan has dreamed of going to pilot school his whole life, so it comes as a bit of a shock when he doesn’t quite make the grade. The next best alternative, unfortunately, is Tatooine Agriculture Academy, and a life as a farmer on his dusty, desert homeworld. Luckily, fate steps in and Roan receives a letter from Master Yoda, inviting him to train at the Jedi Academy on Coruscant. It may not be pilot school, but Roan realises that it may be his ticket to a better life. He just needs to get to grips with the Force, lightsabers and of course...girls... Full review...
The Ghost Prison by Joseph Delaney
Meet Billy Calder. The young orphan has got a job, which is lucky as he's nearly too old for the Home for Unfortunate Boys. Unluckily it's a job at the local spooky castle, which is the town prison. It's sat looming above everyone and has generated a whole host of legends and ghost stories among the people below. More unluckily, the truth behind those ghost stories is even worse than the public imagination. Even more unluckily, Billy has been singled out for the night shift. And we find out just how Billy's luck runs out completely when we learn who requested him to work nights… Full review...
Eat Up, Little Donkey by Rindert Kromhout and Annemarie van Haeringen
Little Donkey won't eat his lunch. He really, really doesn't want to eat at all. So, without a fuss Mama Donkey packs him into the pushchair and off they go to the park. I wonder what she has in mind? Full review...
It's Not Yours, It's Mine! by Susanna Moores
Presents are always special but Blieka’s new present is extra special. It is a lovely red ball and Blieka is sure that it is most definitely not for sharing. This ball belongs to Blieka and no-one else! Time passes and the lovely red ball is not quite so lovely anymore. Blieka needs help but what can Blieka do now? Will Blieka’s friends be prepared to come to the rescue? Full review...
The Weasel Puffin Unicorn Baboon Pig Lobster Race by James Thorp and Angus Mackinnon
I really enjoyed this book, but it is pretty clear from the outset, that this book will not be everyone's cup of tea. I'm just waiting for it to make an appearance on the banned or challenged books lists ( I read them regularly and get many of my best books from them). Curious George has been challenged more than once for being having a pipe in one illustration, but Weasel in this book is never without his. Coupled with the surreal, psychedelic images and the dream like quality of this book - there are sure to be complaints, but I don't think the author or illustrator will mind. I can't imagine this book being written or illustrated by anyone who gives a fig about political correctness. And in all honesty, there is nothing in this book that children are going to take the wrong way. The illustrations in this book are not going to make a child smoke a pipe anymore than they will make them try to go swimming in the fish tank. But if you prefer more mainstream children's books you might want to give this one a miss. Full review...
Out of the Clouds of Deceit by David Canning
On his way to begin training to be a pilot in the RAF, Aiden met Dennis in a railway station buffet. As luck would have it they were both on their way to the same place, for the same reason and would find themselves sharing a room. Trained and mentored by older serving officers in what was the immediate post-war period they came to understand - and to some extent feel - the sense of betrayal which burdened the pilots from bomber command who had taken part in the Allied bombing campaign in the World War II. Flying was in Aiden's blood and he was at home in the air and in the mess - the comradeship of men suited him and he understood the nuances. He was less at home with women, never completely understanding the different needs a woman has in a relationship. Full review...
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
In the future, vampires exist, and everyone knows it. To try and deal with the problem of vampirism, cities have been given to the monsters and designated Coldtowns – walled cities where people can enter, but hardly ever leave. With these cities broadcast on TV 24 hours a day, they look glamorous – but those just watching can’t see the deadliness behind the glitz. Seventeen-year-old Tana is about to find out. Along with her ex-boyfriend Aiden, who’s just been infected by a vampire and has to go without drinking blood for eighty eight days or turn into one himself, and a mysterious vampire named Gavriel, she’s headed for the largest Coldtown of them all. Can they get there – and if they do, will any of them survive? Full review...
Haunted by William Hussey
Emma Rhodes is haunted by the memory of her younger brother Richie, whose death has torn apart her family and left Emma plagued by intense guilt. But when the arrival of a mysterious boy, Nick Redway, heralds the arrival of spirits of the dead to Milton Lake, Emma finds herself being haunted by altogether more dangerous entities. The 'unmade' are spirits of people who died violent, unexpected deaths, now corrupt and desperate to possess living flesh. A necromancer is calling the dead back to the world using the fabled Ghost Machine. The more the machine is used, the weaker the gates between life and death grow, until nothing can stop the unmade being unleashed upon the town. Only Nick seems to know how to fight the ghosts, and Emma must help him to find the necromancer operating the Ghost Machine, before all hell breaks loose. Full review...
We Love You, Hugless Douglas by David Melling
We first met Douglas when he was simply a bear wanting a hug. Since then he’s been to a sleepover and had a few little issues in Don't Worry, Douglas. Now he’s returning back to his original sort of set up. This time, instead of a hug, he’s after someone to call his best friend. Full review...
Things You Never Knew About Dinosaurs by Giles Paley-Phillips and Liz Pichon
The idea of a dinosaur on a trampoline or playing football is just plain silly. After all, everyone knows dinosaurs died out yonks ago…didn’t they?
Nope.
No, they did not. Full review...
Monkeys in my Garden: Unbelievable but true stories of my life in Mozambique by Valerie Pixley
Valerie Pixley and her husband O'D live in Mozambique, amidst its rapidly disappearing forests. Monkeys in my Garden tells the story of what life is like in the Nhamacoa Forest and how they came to be there. It opens with a terrifying scene: armed bandits in their bedroom in the middle of the night. Full review...
Elmer and the Whales by David McKee
Elmer and Wilbur are spending some time with Grandpa Eldo, something lots of children will identify with. He tells them that in his youth, this was the time of year he’d go down to the coast for some Whale watching and, well, that sounds like a marvellous idea, so Elmer and Wilbur decide to try it for themselves. But it turns out there’s more to Grandpa Eldo’s story than he’s telling them, and Elmer and Wilbur soon find themselves on a wild adventure. Full review...
Animal Noises by Nicola Killen
Sometimes a picture book comes along that is so beautiful, it’s almost wasted on slobbering, grubby-fingered toddlers. This is one such book. Animal Noises is one of the prettiest board books I’ve ever seen. It is a lift-the-flap book of, you’ve guess it, sounds made by animals. Full review...
Celtic Warrior: The Legend of Cu Chulainn by Will Sliney
Queen Maeve wants the Brown Bull of Cooley and the lands of Ulster. With an army of 10,000 men, she marches to try to take them by force. The only man who stands between her and her goal is Cú Chulainn, the legendary hero. Can he save his country from the evil enchantress? Full review...
More Than This by Patrick Ness
Here is the boy, drowning.
And Seth does drown. He is alone; taken by the sea, arms and legs flailing and breaking, skull dashed against the rocks whilst the icy water constricts his muscles and breath. Seth is consciously aware of his final moments. His death consumes him with a heavy, confusing blur until… he awakens and finds himself in a desolate, shattered world; naked, alone, starving and alive. This place looks familiar. It looks exactly like the English village where he spent his early childhood before his brother’s accident and his family’s move to America, but it is now overgrown and devoid of human life. It is as if the whole place was simply abandoned one day. Full review...
The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer
At last! A long-awaited sequel to Nancy Farmer's acclaimed House of the Scorpion, in which she explored the life of a little boy who was created solely to provide organs for the failing body of a drug lord. Matt's story was exciting and heartbreaking - would you want to find out you were a clone? It was also incredibly thought-provoking, exploring ideas of prejudice, power, courage, love and sacrifice. And it all took place in a dystopian future in which the drug trade was all but legitimised and in which people are enslaved by microchips in the brain. Full review...
Never Go Back by Lee Child
Jack Reacher is calling on a lady friend. He's never actually met her, they've just spoken on the phone, and he likes her voice. For a drifter like Reacher with nothing better to do, that's a good enough reason to head to Virginia and maybe buy her a coffee. Except when he arrives at his old unit's headquarters, the lady he wants to meet - new commanding officer Major Susan Turner - isn't there. Instead, he finds himself accused of homicide, and brought back into the army. Someone is going to be very sorry about this.
And does anyone really think it'll be Jack? Full review...
The 100 by Kass Morgan
Nuclear war has rendered the Earth uninhabitable for centuries. The remains of human society, a colony of people that managed to escape the cataclysm, live out their lives on massive city-like spaceships. Unfortunately, the spaceships are becoming unsustainable and as resources begin to run out, the Council is forced to introduce strict new plans and measures in an attempt to protect the remaining population. With options running out, a dangerous mission is conceived as a desperate roll of the dice: one hundred juvenile delinquents are sent to the Earth to test if the planet can once more sustain life. There is no telling what the remaining radiation will do to the teenagers, but in this hardened society, this is a risk worth taking. Full review...
Lockwood and Co: The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud
Sensing ghosts is a risky business, even if you're as talented as Lucy. And when one simple mistake leads to the death of several children, she sets off for a new start in London. Here there is an absolute epidemic of ectoplasm, icy air and bloodthirsty beings from beyond the grave. But ghost-hunting is big business down south, and the major firms won't hire an unknown. The only agency which will take Lucy is a down-at-heel place run, in the basement of their home, by two teenagers. Full review...
Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper
I loved Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Sequence, but as surprised as I am to say this - this book is far better. While still suitable for older children, this is definitely a book that adults will want to read as well. The book is more mature than her early works, and while obviously gifted from the start, Cooper's talents have matured as well. This book is nothing short of a masterpiece. Full review...
Armchair Nation: An intimate history of Britain in front of the TV by Joe Moran
All of us have a love-hate affair with television, or ‘the idiot lantern’. Hardly anybody who has ever owned a set, or been part of a family which has had one, can envisage life without it. It has been a source of endless entertainment and escape from the drudge of everyday life, while at some time it has irritated most of us beyond measure. Love it or loathe it, it has always been part of the fabric of our existence. While to a certain extent it has been superseded by online services which have supplemented if not overtaken or usurped part of its role, its iconic status is unlikely to disappear for the foreseeable future. Full review...
Straight White Male by John Niven
In Kill Your Friends, John Niven delivered a scathing and hugely entertaining satire on the music industry. In Straight White Male he's turned his attention to Hollywood and academia with similarly impressive results. Full review...
Just Right for Two by Tracey Corderoy and Rosalind Beardshaw
When we first meet Dog he is rushing joyfully through the woods clutching a big, blue suitcase festooned with stickers from his travels. In this suitcase he has put all the treasures he has collected and he is sure that these are all he needs to make him happy. But then one morning Dog meets someone. That someone is Mouse and it is through meeting Mouse that everything changes for Dog. Full review...
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Cecelia, Tess and Rachel are three women spread across the generations, and spread across Australia. At first glance they have little in common, but as this book progresses, their lives move closer and staggering links appear between the threesome. Full review...
Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty by Jerry Oppenheimer
Back in 1885 three brothers were inspired by a speech by Joseph Lister, the pioneer of antiseptic surgery, to create a range of surgical dressings - such things were previously unheard of - and this was the beginning of Johnson & Johnson, providers of Band-Aids and baby powder. It also brought phenomenal wealth to the founders and a variety of trusts continued this down the years. The first president of the company was Robert Wood Johnson. NFL fans will be aware of his great grandson, Robert Wood Johnson IV (known as 'Woody'), owner of the New York Jets. In between the two - and afterwards - there are a string of tragedies and scandals which put you in mind of the Kennedy dynasty. Full review...
The Kills by Richard House
Richard House's Booker-longlisted The Kills is a collection of four related books, originally published in e-book format between February and June 2013. In some ways, the e-book format is the natural habitat for House's creation as it includes a largely optional multi-media component to the story. It is a hugely ambitious piece about money, murder, greed, stories and where things start and equally where, if ever, they end. Covering more countries than feature in Michael Palin's passport, the book starts with corruption and embezzlement in a US civilian company working in the re-building of Iraq, and ends with a kind of 'Tales of the Unexpected' story in Cyprus having taken in a gruesome story of murder in Naples. Full review...
Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America by Allen M Hornblum, Judith L Newman and Gregory J Dober
If I told you that doctors had been using human beings in the most horrible of medical experiments, that they had done things like tie toddlers to beds to insert live pathogens into their eyes, injected children with radiation, sterilised those thought to be subhuman and even castrated a child just to get a supply of tissue for a lab experiment, you might very reasonably assume I am talking abut Nazi Germany. I am not. Full review...
Ten Little Pirates by Mike Brownlow and Simon Rickerty
Ten little pirates, sailing out to sea,
Looking for adventure, happy as can be.
Are they hunting treasure? Are they going far?
Ten little pirates all say, 'Arrrrrrr!
Full review...
God Versus Particle Physics: A No-Score Draw by John Davies
God Versus Particle Physics: A No Score Draw is a bold, witty and undoubtedly controversial book that questions our blind faith in science. Davies, a psychologist, analyses the subject in detail, creating some interesting and convincing arguments concluding that some of the latest theories in the realm of physics seem to border on the metaphysical, lacking any kind of demonstrable proof. He reasons that many of the arguments used by prominent atheists, demanding evidence that God exists, can also be applied to ideas such as the Big Bang, parallel universes, dark matter and the Higgs Boson, ironically known as the God particle. Full review...
Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men by Derek Landy
Kingdom of the Wicked left the magical world reeling and on the precipice of conflict, a conflict that erupts into full out war between Sanctuaries. Although the Supreme Council has vastly superior numbers, Ireland is home to some of the most powerful sorcerers in the world, including the legendary Dead Men, creating a formula for endless violence. But this is no straightforward war. Friends and former allies suddenly find themselves on opposing sides of the conflict, and not everyone is prepared to follow orders. Then there is the threat of an army of Warlocks, gathering to attack the mortal population, and thereby reveal the magical population to the world. And despite Roarhaven being the new site for the Irish Sanctuary, can its population, including the secretive Children of The Spider, really be trusted? And looming above all this chaos is the greatest threat of all: Darquesse. Valkyrie knows that she doesn't have any more second chances. If she succumbs to that sinister voice in her head, the lure of that incredible power, she will watch everyone she cares about die by her own hand. Full review...
The Little Ghost by Otfried Preussler and Anthea Bell
I have to admit I was slightly prejudiced about this book. The Little Ghost immediately brought back memories of Robert Bright's Georgie which I had cherished as a child. Like Georgie, Little Ghost is a wonderful friendly character, if you are looking for a fright, this book will not be at all suitable. But if you jut want a feel good adventure for younger readers, this book is just the thing. Full review...
